‘Peaceful?’ I said, thinking of the constant fiddling and barking and mooing and sneezing and singing yesterday.
‘Almost too peaceful. I always seem to doze off and time goes haywire. The day just disappears. Your whole holiday is slipping by and it seems such a waste. I wanted you to have a really brilliant time.’
‘We are, Dad, we are.’
‘I didn’t fix up for you to go on any holiday courses or do any special activities because I wanted us all to have fun together.’
‘We are having fun, Dad,’ I said.
‘I know we can’t comfortably all fit in the car together, but we could always leave the others to hang out here and go off just us three. We could go to the seaside – or up to London? No, I know, how about if we went to the zoo? You used to like going to the zoo when you were little, Robbie.’
Robbie wavered. I knew how much he’d like to go to the zoo now. He loved seeing all those animals so much. But there was one small monkey-type creature he wanted to see more – especially as it was his turn to make a wish.
‘I love the zoo, Dad, but I’d really sooner go and have a picnic in Oxshott woods,’ he said.
‘You’re a funny little tyke,’ said Dad. He patted Robbie on the shoulder. ‘I wish I saw more of you, son. I don’t think it’s necessarily good for you growing up without your old dad. You’re such a little worry-guts at times. All this fussing about silly stuff like going on the tube! You should have grown out of that years ago. I think maybe your mum’s too soft with you.’
‘Robbie’s fine, Dad,’ I said. ‘Mostly.’
‘Let Robbie speak for himself, Ros. You’re always sticking up for him, doing his talking for him. I know you mean well and it’s very sweet, but he’s got to stand on his own two feet. You’re a little man, Robbie – remember that! And as for you, Rosy-Posy …’
Oh dear. Now it was my turn.
‘You’re such an earnest old-fashioned head-in-a-book girly,’ said Dad, pulling one of my plaits. ‘I think maybe Mum’s keeping you a little too young. Maybe it’s time you had a few fancy up-to-the-minute outfits.’
He plucked at my T-shirt shoulder and tutted at my torn jeans.
‘Perhaps you could go shopping with Alice. She’s got a real eye for clothes, great fashion sense. She’d help you choose some stuff.’
‘I like my old T-shirt and jeans,’ I said. ‘I don’t really want to go shopping.’
I’d have loved new clothes, of course. I sighed enviously whenever I looked at the clothes in Smash’s wardrobe. But I couldn’t bear the thought of shopping anywhere with Alice. She sometimes looked me up and down with one eyebrow raised. She never said anything, but she didn’t need to. That look was enough.
Dad sighed at both of us, as if we’d failed an exam.
‘Well, we’ll go on yet another picnic to ye olde Oxshott woods,’ he said. ‘But mind you tell your mum I offered to take you anywhere you wanted, money no object. I don’t want her to think I’m a cheapskate, not prepared to make a fuss of you.’
Robbie and I murmured and smiled and wriggled away. Robbie sloped off to his room and collected his favourite animals and let them roam in the soft dusty terrain underneath Maudie’s bed.
I went to my bedroom and hunched up with The Railway Children. I couldn’t help envying Bobbie and Peter and Phyllis, whose father was totally out of the picture until the very last chapter.
Smash came kicking her way into the bedroom, playing football with her velvet bomber jacket.
‘You shouldn’t scrunch it up like that – and you’re getting it all dusty,’ I said.
‘Who cares?’ said Smash.
‘You care,’ I said. ‘That’s your best jacket. Didn’t your dad buy it for you when he was in the States?’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t care much about him any more,’ said Smash. ‘I sent him this ever so long funny email, reams and reams of it, and do you know how he replied? Hey kid, Have fun, Love Dad. Six words. And I asked him all sorts of questions and he’s just ignored everything. He didn’t even respond when I moaned about Mum and he normally loves it when I do that. He’s obviously way too busy with his new little wifie to give a stuff about me. Are you sure you don’t want to think up some brilliant anti-dad wish for the Psammead?’
‘No, though I agree it’s tempting. But it’s Robbie’s turn for a wish, you know that.’
‘Well, have a word with him, see what he wants to wish. He’s such a little weirdo, goodness knows what he’ll come up with.’
‘He is not a weirdo,’ I said fiercely.
‘Hey, calm down, I’m just realizing we haven’t got that many wishes left till you guys go home and if you don’t mind my saying so, my wish has been the best of the lot so far, and ultra unselfish too, because we all enjoyed being rich and famous,’ said Smash.
I wandered off to see what Robbie was up to. He was under the bed now, mumbling to his creatures.
‘Hey there, Robs,’ I said, kneeling right down and peering at him.
Maudie’s night-time potty was under there too. I hoped he wasn’t playing that his animals were at a waterhole.
‘It’s your turn for a wish! Have you thought what you’re going to ask for?’
‘Yep,’ said Robbie.
I waited.
‘Well? What’s it going to be?’
‘I don’t have to tell you first,’ said Robbie.
I blinked at him. Robbie usually told me everything. I felt a little foolish, kneeling there with my bottom stuck in the air.
‘Do come out, Robbie.’
‘I don’t have to do what you say,’ said Robbie. ‘Dad said.’
‘I sighed heavily.
‘Okay, okay. Stay there. Stay there forever if you like, though you’re getting dust all over yourself – and Alice will be doing the picnic soon and I expect she’d have let you make some more cakes.’
Robbie pondered. Then he rolled out from under the bed.
‘You’d better have a good wash and change your clothes. Look at you!’ I said.
‘I don’t want to,’ said Robbie. ‘You can’t boss me about.’
‘Okay, don’t then. But I’m not bossy. I’m trying to be helpful. I just want to talk over your wish, in case anything might go wrong.’
‘You were the one who made the wish by mistake and got trapped in the past, not me,’ Robbie pointed out unkindly.
He felt for his animals under the bed, stuffed a handful down his T-shirt and took them off to the bathroom with him. I heard him thumping about making gorilla noises, and then roaring and trumpeting.
‘I give up,’ I said, and went downstairs to help Alice myself.
She’d decided on bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches this time. Smash grilled the bacon and I washed and shredded the lettuce and chopped tomatoes. There were also little sausage rolls. Robbie had emerged, reasonably clean, so Alice let him roll the pastry. Then she made individual gooseberry fools in little pots with lids and washed a punnet of big strawberries and a pound of cherries. Best of all, she made fairy cakes, letting us all have a turn at mixing – and licking out the bowl afterwards. When the cakes were in the oven she made some icing and then let us decorate the cakes when they’d cooled down.
‘You’re ever so good at making picnics, Alice,’ I said – but then I felt disloyal to Mum. Her picnics weren’t anywhere near as elaborate. They were usually cheese-spread sandwiches and an apple each.
‘Why are you sucking up to my mum?’ Smash hissed.
‘I’m not. I’m just stating a fact,’ I said.
‘She’s mad. She makes all this food yet, you watch, she hardly eats anything herself, just because she wants to keep thin as a pin,’ said Smash. ‘When I’m grown up, I’m going to eat whatever I want, all the time.’
‘Well, you’ll look pretty weird wearing those skimpy stage costumes. But I don’t suppose it’ll matter too much just so long as you can sing okay,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I want to do another concert at the O2. H
ey, Robbie, can you wish that we’re all doing a concert? You can sing too. You could be like a little mini version of Robbie Williams – that would be cool, eh?’
‘I’m not wishing that. I’ve got my own wish,’ said Robbie.
We had to wait till we were in the woods to find out what it was.
‘Hey diddle diddle?’ Maudie sang hopefully, looking around – but mercifully the nursery-rhyme people had all disappeared.
We scrabbled in the sandpit, Maudie chanting ‘Monkey, Monkey, Monkey!’
The Psammead surfaced reluctantly.
‘You again?’ it said. ‘I only seem to snooze for ten minutes and then you’re back disturbing me.’
‘Funny Monkey,’ said Maudie, stroking it.
It quivered at her touch but let her continue.
‘Please try not to wish for anything too noisy today,’ it said. ‘Those creatures parading up and down yesterday had very strident voices and the livestock sounded utterly out of control.’
‘Don’t worry, I don’t want any more nursery rhymes,’ said Robbie. ‘I know exactly what I do want, though.’
He stood his zoo animals in the sand: his favourite lion, an elephant, a gorilla, a monkey, a giraffe, a zebra and a camel.
‘I wish all my animals could come alive,’ said Robbie.
The Psammead twitched in alarm.
‘More livestock – and savage ones into the bargain? Silly boy,’ it said, but it puffed itself up hugely and then scrambled hastily back down under the sand. We stared at the little plastic animals, knocked off their tiny hooves by the burrowing Psammead.
Then the lion yawned and stretched and kneaded its paws in the sand. The elephant moved its head from side to side, its tiny trunk waving in the air. The gorilla stood up on its hind legs, its hands nearly touching the ground. The black-and-white monkey scampered away from the gorilla, making an anxious little barking noise. The giraffe stretched its long neck, its little ears twitching either side of its horns. The zebra struggled to get as far away from the lion as it could, darting this way and that. The camel stepped out with its two-toed feet, totally at home in the sand.
‘Oh!’ Robbie whispered, awestruck. ‘Look, just look! My animals! They really are real!’
‘They’re so sweet,’ said Smash. She picked up the lion – and it batted at her with its front paw and stuck its teeth into the padded flesh of her little finger.
‘Ow! The little monster!’ she said, dropping it and examining her finger. ‘Teethmarks! I’m bleeding!’
‘It’s a lion, Smash. And watch out. Maybe it remembers when you tried to bite its head off,’ said Robbie.
‘Better watch out for that zebra then, Robs. We don’t want the lion to start nibbling it,’ I said. I picked it up and it stood quivering in the palm of my hand. ‘Oh, it’s gorgeous. I love its little stripes.’
‘Monkey! Weeny monkey!’ said Maudie.
‘Gently, Maudie. Very, very gently,’ said Robbie as she picked it up to examine it properly.
The monkey gave its tiny bark, ran up Maudie’s arm and then ducked under her sleeve.
‘It tickles!’ said Maudie, giggling.
The monkey nestled inside her T-shirt sleeve, using it as a cuddle blanket.
‘I’ll have the big monkey then,’ said Smash. ‘Come here, monkey-monkey.’ She poked the gorilla in the stomach. It reared up and beat its chest, showing his miniature teeth. ‘Hey, don’t you dare bite me too!’ she said, flicking him over in the sand.
‘Stop it, Smash! Leave my animals alone. You’ve got to treat them with respect. They’re little wild animals.’
‘Oh, oh, is it going to eat me then?’ said Smash.
‘My gorilla is entirely vegetarian, so it would think you taste disgusting – but it’s ever so strong. I bet it could tear your finger right off if it wanted,’ said Robbie.
‘Keep it right away from Maudie then,’ I said.
The elephant trumpeted and raised its tail. Several little balls of elephant dung dropped in the sand.
We all stared – and then rocked with laughter.
The camel looked down its nose at us and spat contemptuously, which made us laugh more.
‘Oh, Robbie, this is such a brilliant wish,’ I said.
‘See!’ said Robbie triumphantly.
‘Only it’s just as well the Psammead didn’t make them life-size or we’d all be savaged to death by now,’ I said.
‘Some of us are,’ said Smash, examining her finger. ‘If I get rabies, I shall make sure I bite you back, Robbie.’
The lion roared, and the zebra jumped right out of my hand and started running swiftly out of the sandpit.
‘Quick, catch him, or we’ll lose him!’ said Robbie. ‘I’ll have to make them some sort of pen. Well, separate pens for the lion and the zebra!’
I caught the poor little zebra and tried to calm it, stroking its tufty mane and scratching it very gently between its ears. Then I caught the giraffe, who knelt down on my other hand, its head looking all around nervously on the end of its long neck. Robbie held his lion in one hand, the gorilla in the other. The lion stopped roaring and lay down submissively and the gorilla curled up as if Robbie’s hand was a little nest.
Smash held the elephant and the camel. ‘But no pooing or spitting,’ she said, wagging her head at them.
Maudie was still in charge of the monkey. It darted out of her T-shirt and perched on the lobe of her ear, holding on tight to her silky hair with its tiny paws.
‘Okay, let me think. The camel’s fine staying in the sandpit. We’ll just make a big ridge across it so that he can’t climb up and out – simple!’ said Robbie. ‘Here, little guy, you have a nap in my pocket.’ He very gently tucked the gorilla away and then scooped the sand around, making his big ridge.
‘Put him down in his little desert then, Smash,’ said Robbie. ‘There you are, camel. Good camel, you’re back in all that lovely sand.’
The camel seemed mildly appreciative, fluttering its double row of minute eyelashes and smiling as it started plodding.
‘Now find a home for this elephant, quick, before it does another poo,’ said Smash.
‘He’ll like some grass,’ said Robbie. He climbed out of the sandpit to the grassy bank. He made a fence with several big logs and then gently took the elephant and set it down on the soft mossy grass. The elephant waved its trunk.
‘See, he likes it. And this is your home too, lion, you like grassland – and you as well, giraffe. Pop him down, Ros,’ said Robbie.
‘Next to the lion? No fear!’
‘He can look after himself, honestly. If my lion tries to bite him, he’ll kick him hard and butt him with his head,’ said Robbie. ‘But we’ll make a completely separate pen for the zebra, because they’re what lions like to eat most.’
‘Can the little zebra have a pen right the other side of the sandpit then, just in case?’ I said.
The zebra was definitely my favourite. I helped construct its own private grassland in a safe little valley, and put it down to graze.
‘There!’ said Robbie. ‘Now, my gorilla and the Colobus monkey like the forest, so they can live in those ferns there. Out you come, gorilla.’ He took it carefully out of his pocket. The gorilla had found an old Smartie and was biting into it like a biscuit.
‘I don’t think that’s very good for you,’ said Robbie. ‘But I suppose it makes a change from all those green leaves. I get sick of eating salad too. There you are, good boy. Here’s your lovely new forest. Maudie, put the monkey here too.’
‘No, I want monkey,’ said Maudie. ‘He tickles me.’
‘Well, I’ll tickle you if you let your monkey have a scamper in the ferns. I think he’ll really like it there,’ said Robbie.
Maudie reluctantly detached the little monkey from her ear and put it in the ferny shade. It chattered happily, ran right up a fern and then swung itself to the next one.
‘There! He’s better at climbing trees than you or me, Smash,’ said Robbi
e.
He sat cross-legged, watching over his little zoo, utterly absorbed. I hovered over the zebra a little anxiously, keeping an eye on the lion. Maudie sat right in the ferns so that every so often the monkey jumped down and ran across her.
Smash tickled the elephant and the giraffe with a blade of grass. She was sensibly wary of the lion. But after half an hour she started yawning and fidgeting.
‘This is all very sweet and lovely, and they look cute, but this wish is getting a bit boring now,’ she said.
‘Don’t be so stupid, Smash. It’s the most amazing wish ever,’ said Robbie.
‘But nothing’s happening,’ she complained.
‘Just watch the animals! It’s so interesting seeing them adapting to their new habitat,’ said Robbie.
‘Yeah, well, I’m not adapting to this habitat. I want my computer and my Xbox. I want to go home now,’ said Smash.
‘Oh, Smash, that’s not fair. Let him play with his animals a bit longer,’ I said.
‘He can take his little animals home with him and make them a brand-new zoo in Maudie’s room,’ said Smash.
‘It won’t be anywhere near as nice for them, though, not like being in the wild,’ said Robbie. ‘Still, I have made a sort of zoo under Maudie’s bed. Oh!’ He sat up suddenly and started nibbling his lip anxiously. ‘Rosalind?’ he said. ‘You heard me make my wish to the Psammead?’
‘Yes, of course I did.’
‘Well, what exactly did I say? Did I say “I wish these animals could come alive”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or did I say “I wish all my animals could come alive”?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Smash. ‘It was your wish, not ours. Why, what difference does it make?’
‘Well, these ones here, my lion and my elephant and my zebra and my monkey and my gorilla and my camel, they’re not all my animals. I couldn’t get the whole lot into my pockets, you see. I just took my African mammals out with me because I collected them first and they’re my favourites. But I’ve also got my Indian mammals. I left them under my bed. And, you see, I was just wondering – could the Psammead’s wish have affected them too?’
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